The Moneybag Galz

When I was nine-years-old I started my first business. It wasn’t a lemonade stand (they don’t have those in Brooklyn) and I wasn’t a Pokémon card dealer. I had been an avid reader of American Girl magazine, which was produced by the same company that made American Girl dolls. These dolls cost about $100 each but as you can imagine the magazine subscription was much more affordable.

Anyways, I decided that I was going to start my own magazine. My target audience wouldn’t be young girls from 6 to 12 as American Girl’s was but instead I planned on going after a niche market- Ms. Thompson’s fourth grade class at Phyl’s Academy. Who could understand that audience better than me? I spent a whole school day with my 20 classmates from morning until afternoon. We fought, we played tag on the jungle gym, and we were forced by our teachers to do embarrassing performances during school assemblies. At that time I thought- if that doesn’t bring a group of people together I don’t know what will. Surely my classmates will support me!

The fact that I had more Barbies than dollar bills, had no professional camera, had no experience in publishing, and hadn’t even hit a double-digit age did not cross my mind at this point. I just thought that I needed to get some customers to buy into my idea and it would be successful.

First I had to assemble a team. I got four or five of my friends to agree to be my business partners and contribute to the magazine. Then we needed a name for the publication- some thing that was clever, that would inspire our fellow classmates to pay us for each issue. After much debate I became the founder and CEO of Moneybag Galz Magazine.

Our first issue included quizzes like who your celebrity husband would be (options included Trey Songz, Chris Brown, Omarion, etc.) and outfit ideas (using images we cut out of other magazines). Our investors were our parents who spent money on paper and ink so we could print out a couple of issues. For the cover I had to get my mom to buy me a Kodak* disposable camera, which I brought to class so my business partners and I could have a photoshoot during lunch. Somehow our classmates managed to find a way into the pictures.

An actual picture from our photoshoot

The day came when we debuted our first ever issue of Moneybag Galz. We wondered if we had enough issues printed out and who our first customer would be.

Turns out it was no one. Not one person purchased the magazine.

I don’t know why we thought we could make a profit from a bunch of fourth-graders. All of us were broke money-wise and our primary form of currency was candy and other lunch snacks. Fruit Roll Ups and Gushers were akin to having Benjamins back in the day.

During the summer before college (2013) I decided to make a Tumblr blog called “Technically An Adult,” which was an earlier version of the blog you’re reading right now. I had considered naming my blog “How to Adult” but a quick Google search made me realize that there was already a popularYouTube channel with this name. The channel focused on practical advice for young adults like doing your taxes and living with roommates. I had already planned to write about mental health, self-acceptance, and personal growth because I sure as heck didn’t know how the stock market worked or what a W2 form was.

I published two blog posts- one talked about what the blog was about and why I had decided to start it. The other was about social media and how the amount of likes I received on a post would affect my self worth. Within a week, the creators of How to Adult, which also had a Tumblr account, had found my blog and reposted my work on their site. Suddenly I had about 100 to 200 followers on Tumblr and I was paralyzed with fear.

I had an audience who had certain expectations of my writing. They wanted to hear what I had to say which was exciting but I didn’t want to write something terrible and then have them all unfollow me. If you visit that blog today you can actually see tumbleweed roll by because after I gained all those followers I quit blogging. The pressure I had created in my head was too much for me. I spent more time thinking about what I should write instead of actually writing because no idea I had was good enough (or so I thought at the time). 

 

Self-doubt hindered me from expressing myself creatively on Tumblr, which was very different from my experience with Moneybag Galz.  My friends and I threw ourselves into creating a magazine that our classmates would buy. Even though we were all broke nine-year-olds and no one bought our first (and last) issue, it didn’t take away from the memories we had of debating over the celebrity husband options, making collages, and taking silly pictures on a disposable camera during lunchtime.

Maybe the problem was that I spent too much time thinking and not enough time doing. If I had the attitude of a nine-year-old when I was 18, who knows where my blog would’ve been today? On NBC news perhaps? A topic of discussion among the Kardashians? Beyoncé’s bedtime stories for Blue? We’ll never know.

*Note: If you saw the words “Kodak disposable camera” and assumed that I meant to write Kodak Black or Bodak Yellow then you’re too young to be reading this blog.